About
Majhi International Art Residency Programme is an annual programme of brief artistic residencies to be promoted year round, with its first edition set in Venice, Italy, in 2019. Each of the initiatives revolves around a diverse chosen theme each year, involving different international artists. The aim of Majhi International Art Residency Programme is to develop an international platform for artists to promote creative connections and cultural exchange between the east and the west. The promoter of Majhi International Art Residency Programme, Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (DBF – www.durjoybangladesh.org), is a private foundation initiated by Durjoy Rahman in 2018 with the aim to support artistic development and art practices throughout the Global South, holding a special focus on Diaspora artists or European communities of migrants, to draw attention to their work in Europe. To do so, the foundation promotes projects and research programmes featuring artists from these geographical regions.
Curatorial Statement
There is totally no space for people to live. We live in constant lack of time, almost in apnea, we hasten to be able to experience all that our hyper-productive world puts in front of us. The acceleration of technology and social transformations has not only destroyed space and geography itself, but has atomised time, fragmented it into many ‘present moments’ that replace one another, that no longer know pauses and intervals, thresholds and passages, and above all they no longer build a single story: Our Own. Because this disintegration also affects our identity, which is impoverished and reduced, stifled by its activities without duration. The age of breathlessness kills all contemplation. The art restores its fragrance at the time, causing disinterested pleasure. The Artist plays the role of a modern pilgrim who wanders through the world as in a desert, giving shape to the shapeless, continuity of the episode and transforming the fragmentary into a whole. Art feeds on slowness, permanence and memory. Art is actus purus. Art as the alchemy of time, creator of a new world within a temporal crystal exempted both from the present and from the past.—- Caterina Corni.
Artists in Residence
1 Ten days with dead tree branch in Venice!
Tree branch; drawings with iodine, moving images, 2019
Dhali Al Mamoon, Bangladesh, 1958
I arrived in Venice without any pre-conceived ideas. The next day I came across a tree branch abandoned by the wall of a house. Upon my return to the hotel, with the branch in hand, I began to ponder upon the relationship between life, death, trees, people, earth and the environment. My series of drawings with iodine and a set of moving images reflect the waters surface in Venice. These works are a multi-disciplinary approach to my reflections upon and my experience of Venice and the environment as a whole.
2 Scent of Time
Oil on canvas 40x30cm, 2019
David Dalla Venezia, France, 1965
My purpose in these two weeks has been to put my experience as a painter at the disposal of my fellow participants, in an attempt to emancipate myself from my subjectivity as a mean of representation. Each one of the paintings I created is thus the result of an interaction with every single participant with whom I shared ideas, space and time during these past days.
3 Merchant of Venice
Photos, 2019
Noor Ahmed Gelal, Bangladesh, 1977
“All that glitters is not gold” – W. Shakespeare Bangladeshi people came with dreams, many sailed the Mediterranean Sea, entered to catch the rose from heaven and they became the merchants of Venice. Life is a journey, everyone makes a purpose to live, people are trying to make their life worthy as they have chased to find a land of opportunity, many died in the sea trying to reach the shore of Italy.
4 Portraits but not Portrait….!
Photograph,mixed media, 2019
Dilara Begum Jolly, Bangladesh, 1960
Women had their voices muzzled since the dawn of history that was written to serve the dominant culture of power throughout ages. They have been subjected to inhuman tortures in the form of physical mutilation to intellectual suppression. I want to bring to life the stories of eight characters who represent the victims as well as the victors who clinched their emancipation through their various struggles against the monstrosity of patriarchy.
5Life – Majhi
Acrylic on canvas, charcoal drawings, 2019
Uttam Kumar Karmaker, Bangladesh, 1962
“Majhi“ means sailor or boatman. In our daily life we all are “majhis” navigating through our lives. My country is Bagladesh, a place full of rivers, so boats are a part of daily life, just like in Venice. As an artist, I want to spread a messages of love through my work to create a positive world without hatred and jealousy. Sometimes we need a Majhi taking us on the same boat from all over the world to spread the message: we all are one.
6Lost Civilization; Revival Song
100x70cm wood; 100x70cm wood, 2019
Rajaul Islam Lovelu, Bangladesh, 1971
It is very important for me to use wood even if I think that wood itself has individual expression without any application on it. I would like to experiment wood in different ways: high relief, low relief carving, chiseling, burning, pasting other materials and sometimes I also add colour for additional extraordinary feelings. There is a connection between the rings of tree trunk and the subjects of my work which is focused both on human violence and lost civilisations from different periods.
7Achrome/Art Waste
Single-use plastic products, resin, plaster, acrylic, 2019
Cosima Montavoci, Italy, 1988
Trash Project began with the necessity of creating a honest fossil that represents our times, the trash tells an authentic story, no-frills or facades. These single-use products, often white or clear and that are slowly being replaced by biodegradable alternatives, are something that will sadly represent our time, but with candor, innocence and an almost poetic aesthetic.
8Engagement Acts
Video, 2019
Andrea Morucchio, Italy, 1967
“Engagement Acts” consists of a series of videos documenting the artist’s actions created in a desolate, barren seascape; a specific alienating atmosphere from control shots, to significant contrasts and to a limited colour spectrum. These are actions in which Morucchio interacts with the elements of this environment: tree trunks, rocks and sand; cathartic actions, liberating vent but also manifestations of an instinctual and primitive expression of creativity/rituality that over the years has characterised some of his installation projects.
9Maze
Installation, old clothes, 2019
Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Bangladesh, 1974
Where do you run to find me…You will not find me by running like this…I am within you. Every minute, thousands of people are being displaced. Some are running towards a dream leaving everything behind, some are forced to leave their dreams behind. It is a maze created by the exploitative system that we have collectively created in this world. But let’s not talk about it. Let’s focus on something pleasant.
10 My Place Is Placeless My Trace Is Traceless
Multimedia installation, variable dimensions; 3 audio tracks:
60′ each looped; 3 horn loudspeakers; video performance
audio/video monitors; 52 strips of paper, 2019
Chiara Tubia, Italy, 1982
The installation is composed of three parts: auditory, visual and experiential. For the sound part three audio sources simultaneously reproduce the sounds of the three most widespread religious traditions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, brought together as a metaphor of contemporary multiculturalism. The same sounds were diffused during a boat performance around the Venetian canals and streets, here on display through a video installation along with various phrases from religious texts installed into bookshelves.
11Der Stapel 37
175x70x80cm steel, plastic, cotton, leather, glass,
aluminum, ink, paper, cardboard, stainless steel, copper,
felt-tip pen, pencil, glue, sand, air, 2019
Umut Yasat, Turkey, 1988
I started to work on “Der Stapel” in 2014. At first this process encompassed tiding all of my previous works together and then it evolved into the agglomeration of not only works of art but also several everyday objects, both meaningful and trivial. I work on these sculptures until they reach my own height and for me they present a way to visualise time.
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